Page 9 of The Wedding Ranch
She lowered herself to the couch still clutching the report card, which wasn’t a card at all, but rather a folded piece of yellowed paper.Why didn’t I toss this box out before?
She flipped the paper in her hand. When Jeff was in the third grade they were still as close as two siblings could be. Inseparable. People often asked if they were twins. Mom dressing them alike hadn’t helped with that.
Lorri opened the report card. The grades were good, just as she’d remembered. He’d always been a better student than her. The teacher wrote that he was well-liked, cheerful, and had a great aptitude for math. Something she didn’t. She remembered shopping for school clothes with Mom and how Jeff could rattle off the sale prices in a snap. Fifty percent off she could do in her head, 10 percent too, but that was the limit. When it came to mathematics Jeff had no limits.
She realized she was smiling as she lifted a stack of school pictures out of the box. Random sizes, misshapen from being cut with kitchen scissors. No teeth in second grade. Football jersey in fifth. Braces in seventh.If only Mom and Dad had known what a waste of money that would turn out to be.By junior high Jeff’s hair was shaggy, and his smile had faded. There weren’t any pictures from high school.
Did any of us notice the subtle changes? Were there warnings that we missed?
Jeff’s high school report card recorded the changes. He wasn’t focused. Skipped class. Didn’t participate. Temperamental. Late. Unapologetic for outbursts. Disrupted class.
He got his first DUI at the age of nineteen.
He went to jail the first time at twenty-two.Just the on-ramp to years of suffering for all of us.
Tied with a silky blue ribbon was a stack of letters he’d written from jail to Mom, and one to Dad. The one to Dad had been crumpled up, then smoothed back out. She wondered if Jeff had crumpled it up and then decided to send it, or if Dad had done it.
Why did you give these to me, Mom?
Shuffling through the box, she found receipts from when her parents had put up the house as collateral to post bond to get Jeff out of jail. She’d never known about that.What else didn’t I know?
She’d hated what his reckless actions did to their family. It was hard to watch. After the car accident, she turned away from him completely.
Unable to push back the curiosity, she opened one of the letters and began to read.
Her thoughts about him needing psychiatric care instead of rehab only grew stronger. The highs and lows. The anger. The apologies.
She dropped her hands into her lap.Did I ever hear him say he was sorry? Did I give him the chance to say it?
She now believed he’d suffered from his bad choices and problems too.
Through tears, the words swam in front of her. She wondered how many times her mother had held these letters, cried into her hands over them. Keeping them to herself must have been hard.
Reaching into the box, Lorri took out the last stack of papers and a large envelope.
Mister walked over and laid down in front of the couch, pressing his chin on top of her feet.
Looking into his deep chocolate eyes, she felt comfort. She pressed her hand to his neck. “Thanks, Mister.”
The summarized list of all of Jeff’s offenses read like a history book. Dates as far back as junior high. Charges as wide and varied as the age range they covered.
The letter Jeff wrote to their mother after he’d been charged with manslaughter was worn. The ink smudged against the soft, faded paper from time. The words were honest, and raw. A sincerity that she’d never seen from her brother.
A tear traced her cheek, settling at her lips.What a horrible thing to live with, knowing his neglect took another life.
Her heart hurt for Jeff rather than because of him.
The transcript from the trial shook in her hand. There was a letter from the family that she couldn’t bear to read. She’d hated Jeff for this since the day it happened. She hurt for them all now.
She put everything back into the box and folded the top to secure it. She couldn’t dispose of this box. Not yet. She carriedit upstairs and tucked it in the attic access. She might never open it again, but it had a place.
The large clock on her studio wall showed she was running late. She rushed to her bedroom and pulled out an outfit from the very back of her closet. One that had been a favorite when she lived and worked in Raleigh and had to wear professional clothes.
A dab of makeup and a few twists of a curling iron to snazz up her hair and she was ready to go when the doorbell rang. Mister gave out a securitywoofand positioned himself about six feet from the door.
She raced past him to the front door and opened it. “Tinsley, thank you for watching Mister today. You don’t know how much I appreciate this.”
Lorri was as nervous about leaving Mister behind as if he were her newborn child. Neighbors for a year now, Tinsley was the first neighbor Lorri met when she moved to Mill Creek Highlands, and that was all because of Mister. Everyone wanted to get an up-close look at the huge dog.
